Because not every dolphin is the same!

Today the whales decided to take a day off and so we had a very relaxed day in the company of dolphins 🙂

Dolphins are often underestimated, especially because most people want to see whales, but it is always nice to have a day like today because we can be reminded of how amazing these animals are!

The day started with our faithful summer friends: the Atlantic Spotted dolphins! A big curious group approached our boat and stayed for a long time playing around us. And the rest of morning and afternoon were in the company of Common and Bottlenose dolphins.

The Common dolphins were especially playful today but not with the boat 🙂 Some individuals always stayed close to the boat, so focused on chasing each other that they barely noticed we were there.

The Bottlenose dolphins, are the most recognized species worldwide because of Flipper, the friendly dolphin from the TV show 🙂 They are one of our resident dolphins here and today they allowed us to stay nearby while they were having some breakfast!

In the afternoon the bottlenose dolphins were still foraging with the faithful shearwaters, but soon they started socializing. Some chasing behaviour could be observed among them and one individual appeared doing spy-hopping, although its vertical surfacing might as well have been the result of some mating activity going on. Three individuals repeatedly came up at the surface in row formation, possibly while chasing others members of the group.

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About
Catarina Fonseca

Catarina is Marine Biologist and was Main Guide and Technical & Scientific Director at TERRA AZUL from 2014 to 2017. She is dedicated, knowledgeable and a passionate friend to animals and humans. We hope she can come back soon to wildlife experiences with us.
, and everyday works on ensuring the highest educational and conservation standards during spractice. She also contributes collecting Data collection for MONICET – The Azores Islands Cetaceans Research & Conservation long-term monitoring project.